ASIO’s “Police State” Compulsory Questioning Regime Has Been Expanded 

Some of the most controversial laws ever to have been enacted in this country have been temporarily reenacted for another three years. Legislation extending ASIO’s compulsory questioning regime passed federal parliament on 20 August 2026. And despite the determination to make these powers permanent having been avoided, the “police state” regime has been seriously expanded.

Introduced in July 2025, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025 was before Australian parliament for an extended period, as there was much crossbench and public opposition to these nontraditional intelligence agency laws. And the popular campaign against them saw the shift towards permanency being dropped, whilst the expansion has been progressed.

This regime had allowed the ASIO director general to obtain a warrant to haul adults to be questioned over espionage, politically motivated violence or foreign interference matters. But as of last week, it’s been expanded to sabotage, promoting communal violence, attacks on the defence system and “protection of Australia’s territorial and border integrity from serious threats”.

The laws have always been contentious, as they permit ASIO agents to compel someone, as young as 14, to answer their questions via threat of imprisonment and even when they’re not suspected of any crime. And these laws have long been disputed as they involve a spying agency that operates in secrecy, acting like a policing agency but without any transparency or protections for the public.

The irony involved in the current debate around federal Labor extending the regime, which was part of the counterterrorism lawmaking drive progressed after the 2001 9/11 terror attacks in New York, is that the laws initially took 15 months to pass, as federal Labor had opposed what it then deemed “police state” laws, and prime minister Anthony Albanese had then condemned them as “draconian”.

Extending the regime

Home affairs minister Tony Burke introduced two bills into federal parliament in July last year. ASIO Bill No. 1, which passed in September 2025, served to extend the ASIO compulsory regime for 18 months as it was about to sunset, so that parliament could then focus on ASIO Bill No. 2, which sought to makes the regime permanent and expand it.

In his 23 July 2025 second reading speech on ASIO Bill No. 2, the minister explained that the regime had been extended five times since the laws were originally enacted in 2003, and the Labor government considered that the powers today “form an essential part of ASIO’s collection powers, particularly in light of the threat environment”.

Burke further raised the 2025 ASIO Threat Assessment, which saw ASIO director general Mike Burgess warn that the threat environment is becoming “more dynamic, more diverse and more degraded”, and that this was set to escalate over the next five years. But in this year’s assessment, the top spy detailed that post-Bondi mass murder that the predictions for 2030 are already upon us.

“The bill also expands the security matters for which ASIO may seek an adult questioning warrant,” the home affairs minister added. “This will enable ASIO to obtain an adult questioning warrant in relation to sabotage, attacks on Australia’s defence systems, the promotion of communal violence and serious threats to Australia’s territorial and border integrity.”

Prior to the changes, adult warrants permitted questioning on espionage, foreign interference and politically motivated violence, which includes terrorism. Warrants for minors continue to only allow for questioning on politically motivated violence. And all subjects can be questioned for 24 hours: adults can be questioned for 8 hours at a time, whilst for minors it’s for up to 2 hours.

Warrants can be issued to people who aren’t suspected of any crime. Subsection 34GD(3) of the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Act 1979 (Cth) makes it an offence for the subject of a warrant to refuse to “give any information” or “produce a record or a thing”, which carries up to 5 years prison. And the subject of the warrant can’t tell anyone that the secretive process took place.

The guts of the bill

Due to public opposition and pushback inside the chamber, the Albanese government dropped its proposal to make the regime permanent in June 2026. So, once ASIO Bill No. 2 receives royal assent, the sunset provision contained under section 34JF of the ASIO Act will stipulate that the compulsory questioning regime will finish three years after that commencement date.

The definition of what matters can be probed into during ASIO adult questioning has been updated under section 34A of the ASIO Act, so that it will include espionage, sabotage, politically motivated violence, promotion of communal violence, attacks on Australia’s defence system, foreign interference and the protection of Australia’s territorial and border integrity from serious threats.

While under the same section, the only minor questioning matter continues to be politically motivated violence. And incidentally, the Albanese regime has continued on with the ability to question minors as young as 14, despite ASIO suggesting questioning warrants for any minor under 18 years old be scrapped in May 2024, while the age was dropped down from 16 to 14 in 2020.

Prescribed authorities are persons who can oversee a compulsory questioning session. The bill amended section 34AD of the ASIO Act, so that officials who don’t qualify for this position has been extended to include defence force or public service employees, agency heads, MPs, parliamentary service employees, directors of public prosecutions, solicitors general and examiners.

The circumstances for when a prescribed authority may be terminated has changed too. Under subsection 34AD(9), this applies in cases of misbehaviour or incapacity due to mental or physical condition, while subsection 34(9A) provides that termination must occur if the individual is bankrupt, has an employment conflict of interest, is no longer eligible or they haven’t complied with the rules.

Additional amendments have further been made in respect of the reports the ASIO head must provide the AG, and the final changes involve post-charge questioning warrants, or ones in relation to a person just charged or about to be, as well as in circumstances when a subject is to produce a record or thing, must occur before a prescribed authority who is “a former judge of a superior court”.

Legal eagles

“This is the largest expansion of secret interrogation and detention powers this country has seen in over two decades, and the major parties are hoping nobody notices until it’s law,” said Greens Senator David Shoebridge on the day the bill was about to pass. “They were forced to reinsert a sunset date for these powers after community pressure, but we know they want them forever.”

“Under these laws you can be locked up and interrogated in this country without ever being charged or even suspected of a crime. That should terrify every Australian, not just the ones in the room,” he continued. “A fourteen-year-old can be detained and questioned by ASIO with no lawyer and no court oversight and then when released they can’t tell anyone.”

In respect of lawyers, section 34F of the ASIO Act stipulates that at any time after the subject of a warrant is given notice of it, they may contact a lawyer in response to it, or if they are under 18, they can contact a minor’s representative, which is defined under section 34AA as a parent or a guardian or someone able to represent their interests, which can be lawyer.

If the warrant involves an ‘immediate appearance requirement’ and the subject is without a lawyer, Home Affairs can appoint a legal professional to cover in the interim before their own lawyer is present. But if there is no immediacy involved, then questioning of the subject is delayed until their lawyer arrives.

Under subsection 34FF(6) of the ASIO Act, if a subject’s lawyer is considered to be “unduly disrupting the questioning” then the prescribed authority can request the legal professional remove themselves, while subsection 34F(4) provides that a prescribed authority may prevent a subject from contacting a specific lawyer if it’s considered it would threaten the session from progressing.

“If while you’re being questioned you stay silent or refuse to answer any questions you can go to prison for five years. Tell someone it happened and you go to prison. That’s the choice this bill hands to an innocent person,” Shoebridge continued last week, as he highlighted other measures within the legislation that act to coerce the subject into responding to ASIO questioning.

“We have watched this government use national security powers against people marching for freedom before,” the Greens justice spokesperson said in ending. “This bill hands them the power to do it in secret, with no one able to challenge it in court.”

Image: Burgess in 2023 by ASIO is licensed under CC BY 3.0. Photo of Shoebridge by Paul Gregoire. Digital eye from Shutterstock.